Letters

by Feature Editor

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Icon Banned from Millet
Lyle McKinney has lived and worked in the Millet area for more than 60 years. He has ridden, driven and sold horses all his life. He lives within half a mile from Millet and has many family members who are very active in the community. He drove the stage coach for Edmonton Northlands for 20 years, has driven teams in hundreds of parades and driven hundreds of miles in the mountains. There have been articles written about him in the Pipestone Flyer, Wetaskiwin Times and the Western Producer. Now because the constable received two complaints of horse droppings on the road, he has been warned that he will be ticketed if he drives his horses within half a mile of Millet. Apparently the person(s) was concerned that their children will play with the droppings. He was stopped on the east side of Millet on a gravel road. He does not take the teams into town unless they are equipped with ‘catch’ bags. However, before doing this the team needs to be conditioned to having this equipment attached to them as well as traffic and people. We all love seeing teams and single horses in parades. How do people think these animals are prepared for such situations? It takes hundreds of hours of driving and gradually introducing them to all elements. With Millet having the train running along any parade route, the teams need to know that their noise and size will not hurt them. To do that they need to be driven close to the tracks and also they need to be trained to cross the tracks when necessary. Lyle has been doing this on the gravel road to the east of the tracks, (a gravel roadway) and the crossing on the north end of town.
I have only two other comments. The first being, what are these children doing playing on the road? And the second is, according to the Alberta Traffic Act, horses still have the right of way. Because of this situation, Millet will be losing an icon that thousands of others would love to bless their community.

Sandra Green

Is the Monarchy good for Canada... You bet!
The monarchy means absolutely nothing to the governance of this county. Their influence has no effect on our decisions. Do you honestly think that Canadians don't get that?
Yet, we insist on and rally around all other cultures and celebrate them. Why then can we not celebrate our history? I for one enjoy and relish it all. As for the cost - please tell me the price tag for for all of the other
ethnic groups -- just so we can be politically correct. Get a Grip!

Gail Kaiser...no kidding!

Dear Prime Minister;
This letter is in response to your continued support of past Prime Minister P. E. Trudeau’s false premise that Canada is a bilingual country and his insult to the great majority of Canadians that the French language must predominate.
While English-speakers have been driven from unilingual Quebec in their hundreds of thousands by Quebec’s disgraceful language laws and other forms of harassment, it is all too apparent you and your government are still forcing that language upon the rest of English-speaking Canada.
Mr. Prime Minister, English-speaking Canadians of all ethnic groups are fed up being designated as second-class citizens, excluded from jobs, careers and promotions in the civil service and military of their own country because they do not speak French. This official government approval of discrimination by a tiny (17%) minority of privileged bilingual French-English speakers, largely of French background, must stop.
Those of us that are Conservative Party of Canada supporters and voted you a majority government to rectify these wrongs cannot comprehend why you support these inequities while the unilingual French-speaking “Nation of Quebec” rewarded your goodwill towards Quebec with a resounding rejection of our party at the polls.
Your continued use of French first on Canada Day in the presence of members of our British monarchy was improper, especially as the Crown represents the embodiment of our historic of English Common-law freedoms and liberties; the very freedoms that Quebec blandly overrides to insult and destroy our British-Canadian heritage.
With respect, may I remind you that the great majority of Canadians are English-speaking voters and we will not suffer lightly those who continue to trample on our language and our 800-year history of freedom and liberty dating from Magna Carta in 1215 AD and paid for so dearly in blood and coin over the ensuing centuries.
I and many others insist that the rule of law be upheld together with its underlying principle that; “Each individual citizen is the equal of each other before and under the law.”

Richard D. Field,

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